Owner Joe Lacob(pictured) and team President and CEO Rick Welts announced that the Golden State Warriors are officially moving to San Francisco. The team will be housed in a new facility on piers 30-32 on the Embarcadero. Oakland, CA on Monday May 21st, 2012

Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle

Owner Joe Lacob(pictured) and team President and CEO Rick Welts...

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Renderings of the Warriors stadium at piers 30-32. Concept by Future Cities. View of the Deck Park.

Photo: Art Zendarski, Future Cities

Renderings of the Warriors stadium at piers 30-32. Concept by...

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Owner Joe Lacob(L) and team President and CEO Rick Welts announced that the Golden State Warriors are officially moving to San Francisco. The team will be housed in a new facility on piers 30-32 on the Embarcadero. Oakland, CA on Monday May 21st, 2012

The Warriors' owners will concede that moving to San Francisco constitutes a big gamble. The entire relocation is expected to cost a half-billion dollars, more than Joe Lacob and Peter Guber bid to buy the team less than two years ago.

They already have a devoted audience streaming into the arena in Oakland, with wallets remarkably impervious to the banal brand of basketball played there. So what difference can a new home across the Bay Bridge make in the team's performance?

The owners apparently have come to see the NBA's free-agency market as something of a real-estate game. Because the league's salary cap allows little variation in how much a premier player can earn on any team, a star might be more easily swayed by location, location, location.

"We went through a year of negotiations in free agency and we whiffed," Lacob said at a Monday meeting with Chronicle reporters and editors, in advance of Tuesday's news conference announcing the Warriors' plans for a waterfront arena near the Giants' ballpark. "It does appear that it matters to major free agents where they play."

Guber, via conference call, added: "The scarcest resource is the talent. If there is a not a world-class venue, that is a factor."

Players do care about their surroundings, but the quality of their locker-room neighbors trumps great views and granite countertops. LeBron James liked the South Beach vibe, and he probably found the absence of state income tax in Florida fairly compelling, too. But he left Cleveland for Miami because he could play alongside Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. The Heat accepted the luxury-tax consequences of carrying three superstars on their roster.

The league's new collective-bargaining agreement makes those consequences much more dire in coming seasons. The new provisions could introduce more competitive balance, or they could prod mid-market teams into gambles that might place them at the grown-ups' table.

The Warriors' owners stressed that they are not banking solely on a new arena's appeal to free agents. Much like the Giants, they want to build a mini-empire in South of Market. Their arena would be available for concerts and conventions in the 300-plus days a year that the Warriors have no game.

The revenue from these events, and any companion restaurants or bars, theoretically could pad the team payroll and cover any luxury tax. That depends on the empire succeeding on a scale grand enough to cover the huge bricks-and-mortar investment, the original purchase cost of the team, and all the dollar signs associated with superior basketball talent.

For the Warriors to take that gamble, they must view the Oakland Coliseum complex with the same disdain as do the A's, who have had more on-field success but attracted a far less exuberant following there in recent years.

For free agents, though, the move to San Francisco might not be a substantial upgrade. Playing for the Warriors still will entail paying the state's high income tax, which might increase for millionaires, and it won't place them in the celebrity capital of California.

Los Angeles best suits the aspirations of the NBA's most image-conscious players. Guber's place in the entertainment industry could offset that advantage somehow, but his connections won't grow much stronger in San Francisco than they are in Oakland. On the whole, players who care about glamour will want L.A. over the Bay Area.

The ones who don't care might as well be in San Antonio. The Spurs have become perennial winners because of one great draft pick, Tim Duncan, savvy scouting and smart coaching. Big-time free agents do not clamor to go to San Antonio. The Knicks have a far more glamorous location, and far fewer 21st century playoff appearances.

For now, the owners seem determined to do a relatively soft sell on the effect of the proposed arena on free agents.

"That's debatable, whether this will make the team better," Lacob said with surprising candor, when questioned by Chronicle sports editor Al Saracevic. Lacob might have learned from his early playoff promises that did not pan out. The rhetoric undoubtedly helped set him up for the booing he received during a ceremony to honor Chris Mullin.

Lacob and Guber need to prioritize selling this idea to the city of San Francisco, not to the basketball crowd. NBA Commissioner David Stern reportedly is scheduled to appear at the news conference Tuesday, signaling support for replacing the league's oldest arena.

Expect the tourism benefits of the venue for San Francisco to dominate the conversation for a while. At one point, Saracevic noted, Guber pointed out that the Warriors would need the arena for only 41 dates, the home portion of an NBA schedule.

Lacob couldn't let that pass. "Peter," he said, "it will be more than 41 days if we get to the playoffs."

No promises, merely a hopeful disclaimer. It's the best way to sum up the basketball benefits of this project.